Let’s ask this question. Would you read some books that was written by a man
that had several wives and worshipped idol if these books would get you closer
to God?

Almost everyone would say “NO” to this question . If this is the case, then
people would need to get their Bibles and tear out the books of Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes and The Song of Solomon, as would you read in the 11th
chapter of 1Kings where Solomon had 700 wives, princesses and 300 concubines:
and his wives turned away his heart (vs.3).

As you could surmised from this statement that when Solomon was younger, God
used him, and as he turned older, he fell away. Could this be a correct
statement?

Now let me ask this question. Could this have happened to anyone else in the
course of time? We, the people of The Church of Christ, believe that this has
happened to Joseph Smith. We believe God did use Joseph Smith to bring about and
publish a book we call The Record of the Nephites, known better as the Book of
Mormon. Does this makes us Mormons? If you believe of the Bible, does that make
you a Catholic? (This is not putting down Catholics). The same holds true to us.
Many believes that just because you believe in the Book of Mormon, you are
either a Mormon or a break off from the Mormon church, which are both totally
wrong.

Let us
explain some history to help better understand this situation:

In the 1820’s, we believe God did show Joseph Smith where to find some hidden
plates and how to interpret them. These plates contained a history of people
that came to this land at the time of the Tower of Babel (See Genesis 11:8) and
also of a history of a people that came to this land 600 B.C. by direction of
God’s orders. We also believe that on May 18, 1829, John the Baptist (a
resurrected being) laid his hands on Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery and placed
the Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son God on both of them. Joseph Smith
also was shown where a temple would be built in Independence, Missouri.

God used this young man, then the falling away started. Most people don’t
realized that all the people that joined the church that God instructed to start
were in different groups. All together, there were 23 different groups, each
with their own leader. The largest was the group with Brigham Young as their
leader. These people called themselves Mormons. Since they were the largest,
everybody thought all the church called themselves Mormons. A lot of the groups
didn’t believe the false prophecies of Joseph Smith , prophecies that didn’t go
along with the written words of God, including the group our Church came out of
led by a man named Granville Hedricks, but stayed with them because of the Book
of Mormon.

After the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, the different groups went their
separate ways. Brigham Young took his group to what is now known as Salt Lake
City. Granville Hedricks took his group to Iowa, then later led by God to
Independence, Missouri. When upon arriving to Independence, Missouri, this group
bought the plot of land where the Lord showed Joseph Smith where the temple
would be built. This is why the church on that parcel of land are called “The
Temple Lot People, or The Church of Christ, Temple Lot.”

As you can see, no one broke away from anyone. They just went their separate
ways.